Category Archives: Altec Lansing

These headphones have single balanced armature technology which delivers great sound quality without any distortion or noise.

Altec Lansing is known for making high quality sound products, and that doesn’t end with speakers.

In addition to theyre speaker systems and docks, Altec Lansing has a series of earbuds too.
They have many different versions, but here Altec Lansing has sent in for review the Muzx Ultra.
The thing that is special about these headphones is that they have a technology called “single balanced armature.”
I still don’t exactly know what it means, but one thing that I do know it means good sound quality.
The Muzx Ultra deliver clear, piercing hi’s and mids that are not to displease. I noticed details in my songs that I hadn’t previously taken note of. There was absolutely no noise except for the noise coming from your music.
In addition to the sound, the SnugFit design is an extremely welcome addition.
These headphones have 26 dB of passive noise isolation, which is great for blocking out everything else around you while trying to listen to your music.
It’s also handy because it means you don’t have to turn your music up as high to block the other sounds out.
The design of the headphones takes away all the possibilities of breaking.
On the earbud there is a small enforcement coming from the bottom to support the cable so it doesn’t bend and break off of the speaker itself. The cable is made of a very slippery plastic coating so you don’t have to deal with friction noise from the cable rubbing against something, which is also a nice addition.
The headphones also have music controls partially up the cable, with a microphone included for your convenience, however I did notice that the controls and microphone were oddly high up the cable.
And look at that, they even threw in a soft case! Don’t want to get these babies dirty or full of crumbs in your backpack, so it’s a very nice and extremely handy addition.
However I did find one bad side to these headphones.
Where’s the Lows?
I mean, I said that they had amazing, piercing highs and mids.

But that’s one downside to single balanced armature technology. In a direct message she sent me, she said:

Balanced armature earphones are used for the best hi & mids, not lows.

So I can’t exactly say I wasn’t caught totally off guard, but it’s a letdown when your hardcore dubstep doesn’t have the same punch as you’d expect.

Overall these are great headphones, that are extremely well made, have great, clear, hi quality sound, and can keep out all of that other sound that you don’t want ruining your listening experience.
The price tag on these is $99.95, which in my opinion, is a bit high for earbuds.
However, single balanced armature technology is a pretty expensive technology at the moment and people are raving about how thanks to these headphones, you can get single balanced armature technology at an affordable price. So can’t complain too much!

Disclaimer: All opinions in this post are only my own and were not influenced in any form by employees or representatives of Altec Lansing.

I have quite a thing for Altec Lansing speakers. I had a pair of extremely old speakers which were working beautifully, and I could pump them pretty loud. But then I was introduced to these. Thanks quite a lot to Altec Lansing for sending me these speakers to review and for keeps. I really enjoy ‘em!

Design

These speakers are quite elegant, and feature a beautiful glass design that leaves absolutely no impression of these speakers being “sub-standard”, in fact quite the contrary.

Geometrically simple glass with 3" drivers and 1" tweeters

The large sub shared the same geometry as the other speakers, elegantly linking them.

Another quite interesting aspect of the system is the control unit.

Cool controller design!

To change the volume, simply twist the middle section of the control unit. You can determine your level of volume using the lights that appear. Also, while playing music, the lights flash in some cool patterns that you are unlikely to find anywhere else. Press the Treble and Bass buttons to control the levels of, well, treble and bass. On the side you will find a headphone jack and an AUX input, both very convenient!

But in this side of the review I came across a pretty minor problem. The cables for the sound system had an incredibly hard time stretching across my three monitor array and back down under my desk. I was barely able to squeeze the cables to fit, but I eventually did accomplish that. This may not be an obstacle for all persons, but if you have a huge multiple yard monitor array to stretch across, you may need to find some kind of workaround (try putting the subwoofer on the desk!).

Sound

I must say that as far as speakers go, these deliver crisp, separated, clean sound. The large subwoofer delivers bass that can literally shake the ground. The best thing about the system is that you can hear each range of sound incredibly clearly. It doesn’t seem to merge them together, almost as if every range was being played from a different speaker. This thing can get up to quite a bit of decibalage… How much, I have no idea as I don’t have one. But I’d bet it’s pretty high! The sound is really amazing even when at full blast. At full blast there is no muffling or distortion. You may go deaf (EXPRESSION!), but other than that it’s quite a remarkable sound system. You really just can’t describe the sound that this amazing system emits. On bass rich songs, you can literally feel the bass drum hit you (almost). The ground shakes and it just about literally emits a shock wave of sound that will hit you with force (literally!). You might as well just be at the concert itself.

Yet I have come across a problem. When there is no music pumping through the system, you get a fair amount of quite annoying background noise. Like a hissing kind of sound… No, this is not a particular manufacturing defect, I have heard of it on many forums online.

But I actually think of it as a reminder to turn the speakers off to save energy, as that may benefit the cause of this high energy bill; after all, 200 watts is quite a bit of power sucking, plus I’m starting to get worried about the structural integrity of my floor, and I hope that I won’t be falling through anytime soon.

Conclusion

Here is a basic list of pros and cons:

Pros:

Rich, deep sound

Can blast right through the floor (almost)

Clean elegant design

Bass rich, but not too much!

Real glass, not cheap plastic

200-watt power

Cons:

A fair bit of background noise

Cables a bit short for multiple monitor arrays

I’m not going to count that last con as very few will encounter this same problem, and as I said, this can be worked around by putting the sub on the desk, which may result in an investment in a new desk after the sub blasts right through it (almost).

So the average score averages out to 8.7/10… OR FOUR [point 3] OUT OF FIVE STARS!

The Altec Lansing expressionist ULTRA system sells online for $199.95, which I think is a great price for this quality.

Once again, thanks a lot to Altec Lansing for sending me this speaker system for free to review and keep!

I recently attended the TeensInTech conference, which was quite fun. But they also gave out so maby goodies, that I paid $35 to go and came back with more than $100 of free stuff and I got to meet Steve “The Woz” Wozniak. Worth it? Ya. One of the things they gave away was the Altec Lansing OrbitM portable speaker. And it’s worth far more than the money I paid for it.

The design is overall very simple and elegant.

As you can tell, it is very small and cylinder shaped. It plugs in through a standard 3.0mm jack on and iPod or mp3 player. It also comes with an adapter to plug it into the 2.5mm Jack on a cell phone. It runs on 3 AAA batteries and even comes with this convirnient carrying case, complete with caribiner.

The unit comes with a slip of paper that says to turn off all base or treble enhancement settings. I must agree with them!
The sound is full and deep. The tiny little thing can go really loud too! The sound is just simply pleasing, and you don’t need a small speaker preset to get great sound out if this thing.

Basically, this is probably one of the best speakers of it’s size in current existence. It usually runs for $40, but they were given out fir free at the Teens In Tech Conference, held annually. This speaker totally rocks, and I got it for free!